As occurred when John Calipari finished his first season with Kentucky, Draft Night was a huge success for Kentucky Basketball Athletes. Along with that occurred what was become an annual affair. Pat Forde railed against Kentucky Coach John Calipari’s insistence that College Basketball be not only centered on a successful National Championship run but a successful night at the NBA Draft. Calipari wants the players he recruits to have success in moving on to a successful career in the NBA. Pat Forde thinks this is a bad idea. Pat Forde thinks that this is bad for College Basketball.

Pat Forde seems to think that College Basketball should not be about the players themselves but about everything else. Pat Forde seems to begrudge the Athletes any success or monetary gain themselves. All the while, Pat Forde’s whole financial existence is predicated upon College Basketball athletes.

College Sports Columnists can make money off of College Basketball. The Coaches whom Pat Forde admires such as Rick Pitino and Bobby Petrino can rake in millions off of College Basketball. Mark Emert and the NCAA can make Billions off of College Basketball. Pat Forde, himself, makes hundreds of thousands of dollars each year off of College Basketball.

However, College Athletes are supposed to subsume their own financial well being for the greater good bottom line of the NCAA, College Basketball and College Sports Columnists.

Pat Forde loves nothing more than to crank yank John Calipari for not winning Championships with “the most talented roster” in College Basketball. Talent doesn’t always work out to the best team on any given night. Potential sometimes takes time. Some talent, such as Anthony Davis & Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, can make the leap from High School to College and reach the highest potential. Others take more time. One cannot tell this to Pat Forde. If Calipari has the most talent, he should have the best team. He should win the NCAA Tournament. We shouldn’t even play the games. We should just crown that team whom Pat Forde has deemed the most talented. Certainly…

Pat Forde rips on Calipari each year after Draft Night. Of course, he let that animosity slide to the background in 2012 when Kentucky won the National Title. One has to wonder how Pat Forde held in all of that hatred. It must have killed him. I suppose he consoled himself by ghost writing a hagiography about the Philandering Pitino and Petrino Brothers.

Calipari says that Draft Night is important to Kentucky. Kentucky is a Player’s First Program. To Pat Forde that is anathema to College Basketball. Talented men (and one assumes women) should put the NCAA first. They should be students first. They should be everything first except human beings who wish to put their talents to use at the highest level of their chosen profession. God forbid that these human beings wish to profit themselves from their talents. These particular children of God should stay in the NCAA for four years and allow the NCAA to profit immensely while they themselves “earn” a degree that is mostly worthless and as they themselves take all of the risk upon themselves.

For it is a given that if a talented athlete suffers a “career” ending injury, the NCAA will throw them under the bus.

The morality of it all! Calamity of Calamities!

A Black Teenager or early Twenty Something using his talents to enrich himself. We can’t have that. That’s bad for the NCAA. Because it is bad for this to happen:

That is the Column Title to the latest Pat Forde hit piece aimed at John Calipari.

Below are to more gems from the keyboard of the most hateful human in College Sports:

Fortunately he has educated the Kentucky fans on the miniscule nature of the national title mission. They now see the bigger mission: helping guys like Karl-Anthony Towns get drafted No. 1, because he surely wouldn’t have had a chance at being the No. 1 pick if he’d been coached for six months by a lesser man and smaller stone than Calipari. Imagine if Towns had made the monumental mistake of playing for Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Self or Roy Williams – he’d probably be an undrafted free agent.

And another:

Who said winning and getting your players drafted are mutually exclusive? Duke won it all and had three first-round picks Thursday night. Wisconsin played in the title game and had two in the top 20. Yet neither Krzyzewski nor Bo Ryan feel compelled to sell their fan base on the dubious premise that the draft is a higher goal than a national championship.

Apparently, winning is everything to Pat Forde. It is a zero sum game. Either Calipari wins the National Championship each year or he is a failure. Thus sayeth Pat Forde.

The irony! Oh, the irony!

This is the same attitude which Pat Forde uses as a weapon against the University of Kentucky Basketball Fan Base. When Kentucky fans were upset that Tubby Smith wasn’t getting to the Final Four much less the National Title game, columnists such as Pat Forde ripped into them. Kentucky fans were unrealistic. “No Coach can get to the Final Four or win a Title as much as Kentucky fans desire.” Kentucky fans were crazy. Kentucky fans were/are racist. Kentucky fans were bad people. Kentucky fans chased off a good Black Man because he was Black. These were all characterization made by Pat Forde and the National Sports Media. Yet, this is the exact same expectations that Pat Forde seems to have for John Calipari. Now, who is being unreasonable.

John Calipari has had an amazing run of success in the NCAA at Kentucky. He has 4 Final Fours, one Championship and a string of successful players transition to the NBA. His players have remained academically eligible. His players have been active in the community. There have been very few off the court issues. His four year players have graduated. And, yes, he has had Three (3) Number One NBA Draft Selections since 2010.

Of course, all has not been perfect. Aaron Harrison was not drafted. Daniel Orton was Daniel Orton. A couple of guys have transferred out for playing time or because they did not fit in well at the program.

Overall, Kentucky Basketball under John Calipari has been a smashing success and many attached to the program have gone on to success in the NBA and elsewhere.

I’m not certain why Pat Forde has such a problem with this…unless he just hates John Calipari.

I’ve always been curious as to the difference between Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and millions of other human beings who stop short of graduation at Universities to fulfill their goals and pursue their dreams.

Perhaps, it’s because so many “One and Done” Basketball players are Black and Whitey in America can’t stand to see a Black human being shorting the byzantine “education” system which they themselves cannot short.

There’s that old race card. Doh!

Seriously, though, why is it a “crime” for a person who wishes to pursue a career (albeit a short career) as a professional Basketball athlete to do so without obtaining a College Degree? What about Basketball requires a 4 year degree? Nothing that I can see. A more mind boggling aspect of this asinine argument is that most college degrees are worthless while pursuit of said worthless scrap of paper is creating more debt for Americans than home ownership. Yet, an athlete who has the opportunity to earn millions of dollars over a 3 to 15 year period is supposed to desire a college degree so much so that he (or she) delays earning said millions in order to obtain said worthless scrap of paper while putting himself at risk of injury and a loss of possible future earnings. Is that insane or am I not seeing some “big picture?”

Also, why is it not a viable course for these persons, if they should wish to acquire/earn a degree, that they not return to college AFTER they have finished their career as an NBA or other league professional athlete?

This seems to me to be naught but the “hating” of untalented people upon those persons blessed with the talents necessary to pursue the NBA profession.

No one seems to care all that much when Baseball athletes go to the league straight out of HS or two years out of College.

No one cared when Tiger Woods quit Stanford to pursue his goal of competing professionally at Golf.

No one cared/cares that Bill Gates didn’t finish at MIT. Same for Steve Jobs.

The only gnashing of teeth and faux concern seems to be for Basketball athletes.

This seems odd to me.

Then we have Calipari who is teaching/coaching/mentoring/advising some of these top kids on their way to their professional goals. In any other endeavor, Calipari would be seen in a positive light. Not so, though, because he is doing so with athletes who wish to pursue a goal of playing basketball in the NBA.

I find this odd. I find it hypocritical. I find it lunatic.

But…you guys go on gnashing your teeth, pulling out your hair, flagellating your backs and lamenting to the heavens the horrible sin of coaching young men and assisting those who wish to pursue the goal of reaching the NBA.

Cal has a fairly decent track record of placing these top recruits into the NBA. No other coach comes close.

But Cal is a villain for helping these guys reach their goals.

Only in White America is it possible to help folks and be vilified for having done so.

1, Wichita State was overhyped. Not entirely their fault. The rest of the NCAA are too cowardly to risk an in season game with the Wichita States of the NCAA. There should be more teams willing to schedule the likes of Wichita State, Dayton, Xavier, SDSU during the non-conference portion of the season. If that happened, we would know what kind of teams were out there flying off the radar and on to the Top 25 rankings. Wichita State is, no doubt, a Top 20 team this season. They weren't a Top 10 or a Top 5 team. We don't know that soon enough, though, because no one will give them a game and the Media falls in love with their little small school darlings. Wichita State was good. They're weren't Top Ten good.

2. Kentucky is finally coming on. Finally becoming a talented TEAM instead of a collection of talent. Great for UK. Great for THAT game. Not great for Wichita State. This should have been an Elite Eight or Final Four game.

I hope it’s not too late and the Cats rip through the Cards tonight. This happened because an extremely talented troop of kids took their time learning the game at the College level. Wichita State met a team coming on after a season of guessing and learning.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Julius Mays’ eight points in overtime, including four clinching free throws in the final 33 seconds, helped Kentucky get the important victory it needed to bolster its NCAA tournament chances, beating Missouri 90-83 Saturday night.
Mays made six free throws in overtime and scored 21 of his 24 points after halftime for the Wildcats (19-8, 10-4 Southeastern Conference), who needed a `quality’ win to go along with their triumph over then-No. 16 Mississippi last month. Kentucky got it by holding serve at Rupp Arena over Missouri (19-8, 8-6) in the marquee game on ESPN College Game Day, and the Wildcats’ backcourt was key in beating the Tigers.
Archie Goodwin scored all 18 of his points after intermission while Ryan Harrow added 16 with eight rebounds and six assists. That helped offset Phil Pressey’s 27 points and Missouri’s determined effort that forced overtime.
Instead, the Tigers saw their road woes continue in falling to 1-7.
Alex Poythress added 21 points for the Wildcats, who improved to 2-1 since losing freshman center Nerlens Noel to a season-ending knee injury.
Kentucky shot 30 of 59 from the field (51 percent). Missouri finished 33 of 76 (43.4 percent).
Alex Oriakhi added 16 points and Laurence Bowers 13 for the Tigers.
The tight ending typified the game’s importance for both teams hoping for at-large tournament bids. Though Missouri seemed to be in better shape than Kentucky, Tigers coach Frank Haith said there were many teams “in the same boat,” needing a substantive win.

I’m not buying the “they’re young” excuse. When I was the same age as Goodwin and Poythress, I was in the Army. When I screwed up or didn’t give effort or when I didn’t learn to do things correctly, NCOs got in my ass.

Mitch, here’s a novel idea. Kentucky Football fans may not be satisfied with losing and being the carpet over which the rest of the SEC (now including Vanderbilt) stomps.

Joker Phillips is not earning his keep. He is now 1-9 on the year. He’s lost the fan base because he is losing games. No one gives a damn about his color. If he were winning, everyone would be behind him. He’s not winning. He’s being paid to win ball games.

He’s a terrible coach who hasn’t had a prepared team in his three years as coach.

He should be employed based upon his talent, skills and record as an SEC Coach. His employment should not be guaranteed based upon cronyism (i.e., his friendship with the AD).

This isn’t the first bout of poor judgment on the part of Barnhart. He kept Tubby far too long after letting Tubby pimp a larger and wholly undeserved pay raise. He let Tubby squeeze a loyalty bonus out of UK even as Tubby planned his move to Minnesota. Barnhart hired Gillispie and nearly killed Kentucky Basketball. He missed the opportunity to hire Mike Leach. He was against hiring Calipari and has caused turmoil with his attempts to exert control over the basketball program risking a rift that might have caused Calipari to depart the program.

I flew into Phnom Penh last night at about 5PM. Reached my hotel,California2, about 30 minutes later. I checked in and stashed my bags in my room then headed down to the bar to have a drink.

I was sitting there talking to Jim, the Hotel owner, for a few minutes discussing my book, his photography and Cambodia.

I sat there for about an a half hour when two gents sat down next to me. One guy was from Las Vegas. The other gent was a fellow Kentuckian who has a brother living in Shelbyville. We sat there for a little over two hours talking college basketball. The fellow from Vegas had attended UTEP (Texas Western) back in the ’60s. He attended the ’66 Final Four. I was hatin’. Envious as hell.

He lives in Vegas now and is a UNLV fan. The Kentuckian is, of course, a Kentucky Basketball fan.

I’m thousands of miles away from home and sitting there talking Kentucky ball with two fellow fans of the game. How cool is that!